


A Statement Based on Truth

by SkysongMA



Series: This Is Not About Love [6]
Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Human AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 15:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1862943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkysongMA/pseuds/SkysongMA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marshall Lee had been gone for nearly a month—no word, no warning, not even a goodbye. Just like always. G.B. had a thousand things he wanted to say on the subject, and none of them were nice. Most would get him labeled a nag, but G.B. reveled in the idea because Marshall Lee would squirm and fidget and try to worm his way out of responsibility, and G.B. would finally have some way to use the restless energy that always filled him whenever Marshall Lee disappeared. </p>
<p>But… he’d never heard Marshall Lee this way. Before this moment, he’d have bet every penny of his inheritance that Marshall Lee would never let himself sound so… vulnerable. Not in front of another person, anyway. </p>
<p>Marshall Lee cleared his throat. “Yeah, I… I don’t really want to be alone.”</p>
<p>G.B. bit the inside of his cheek. A litany of refusals scrolled behind his eyes, each more sensible than the last. And yet—that voice—</p>
<p>It wasn’t rational, but, then, their relationship never had been. </p>
<p>“Yeah, you can come over.”</p>
<p>Marshall Lee hung up. He never said goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Statement Based on Truth

Marshall Lee had been gone for three weeks, five days, and seventeen hours.   
  
Not that G.B. was keeping track. He just had a very good memory.   
  
This was the fifth time Marshall Lee had left without warning—not that G.B. was keeping track of that, either.   
  
***  
  
Marshall Lee called G.B. in the middle of the night—which, by this point, was no surprise. “Can I come over?” Marshall Lee asked, not even waiting for a sound from G.B.  
  
G.B. blinked at his headboard. He was tangled in his sheets, clutching his pillow in one hand and the phone with the other. Marshall Lee’s words hadn’t quite made sense, but the tone did. He never sounded so… serious. “Say it again?” G.B. mumbled. His mouth tasted like fuzz.   
  
“I just…” Marshall Lee drew in a breath. “I got some really bad news, and you’re… you’re kind of the only person I know around here, and—”  
  
Somewhere in the middle of Marshall Lee’s third sentence, the first one made sense, and G.B. sat up. “You want to come over?”   
  
He glanced over at the clock. It was one in the morning. He had class at eight.   
  
Marshall Lee had been gone for nearly a month—no word, no warning, not even a goodbye. Just like always. G.B. had a thousand things he wanted to say on the subject, and none of them were nice. Most would get him labeled a nag, but G.B. reveled in the idea because Marshall Lee would squirm and fidget and try to worm his way out of responsibility, and G.B. would finally have some way to use the restless energy that always filled him whenever Marshall Lee disappeared.   
  
But… he’d never heard Marshall Lee this way. Before this moment, he’d have bet every penny of his inheritance that Marshall Lee would never let himself sound so… vulnerable. Not in front of another person, anyway.   
  
Marshall Lee cleared his throat. “Yeah, I… I don’t really want to be alone.”  
  
G.B. bit the inside of his cheek. A litany of refusals scrolled behind his eyes, each more sensible than the last. And yet—that  _voice_ —  
  
It wasn’t rational, but, then, their relationship never had been.   
  
“Yeah, you can come over.”  
  
Marshall Lee hung up. He never said goodbye.  
  
***  
  
A knock came at the window fifteen minutes later, bringing the time Marshall Lee had been gone to three weeks, five days, and eighteen hours. The even number pleased G.B. even as he hurried to his feet and pulled the window open. He stepped aside to let Marshall Lee in; Marshall Lee sat down on G.B.’s desk, his hands gripping his knees like otherwise he would fly away.  
  
Marshall Lee had lost weight, like he hadn’t eaten at all in the past few weeks. G.B. knew that was physically impossible. He also would not have put it past Marshall Lee to try. His eyes were red-rimmed and marred by dark circles beneath the lids.  
  
G.B. did not know what to make any of it. He never would have said Marshall Lee would let anyone—much less G.B.—see him this vulnerable. So he waited, hoping for more input.   
  
Marshall Lee opened his mouth, closed it, and looked away.   
  
G.B. put his hands on his hips. He knew this position made him look like someone’s grandfather, and also that he didn’t want to look disapproving, but he didn’t know how else to look. He swallowed the nasty words that had been brewing inside him the moment Marshall Lee called and managed, “Are you going to tell me what you need or not?”  
  
Marshall Lee swallowed again. “I… I don’t know where to start.”  
  
G.B. frowned. “Start at the beginning.”  
  
“I don’t know what the beginning  _is_.” Now he sounded more irritated than quiet, and that was good. G.B. knew how to handle Marshall Lee irritated, knew how to give as good as he got. He did not know how to deal with Marshall Lee weak and wounded.   
  
G.B. opened his mouth to say something else prissy and mean, but Marshall Lee glared. G.B. was grateful for the excuse to remain silent.   
  
Marshall Lee took in a breath; his hands tightened on his knees, gripping the ripped denim, and relaxed. “You. You said you wanted to know the real me. I want to tell you about it now, but I’ve never—done that before.”  
  
G.B. froze, waiting for the punch line. But Marshall Lee just kept looking at him, so he bit his lower lip and nodded. “You are correct. I did say that.” He drummed his fingers on his thigh. “Why don’t you sit and tell me what you want to tell me.” He pointed at the bed because the only other seat was his desk chair, and it wasn’t comfortable.  
  
Marshall Lee hesitated, but, to G.B.’s surprise, he didn’t argue. He slid off the desk and nudged off his shoes. He was barefoot beneath them. Marshall Lee hated socks. Slowly, Marshall Lee walked to the bed and perched on the edge, leaning against the footboard.  
  
G.B. wondered, only for a moment, if he ought to sit in the desk chair. He liked to maintain a certain amount of space between them at all times. But. Well. Marshall Lee looked so distraught. He sat at the opposite end of the bed, pulling his legs underneath him.  
  
Marshall Lee pushed his fingers into his hair. “There’s a lot. There’s a lot I have to tell you before it can make sense.”  
  
G.B. pursed his lips. He wanted to say something true, because Marshall Lee was trying to do the same. But—  
  
He swallowed and did the best he could. “I’m already awake.” It sounded peevish, but Marshall Lee saw through that. He didn’t smile, but he met G.B.’s eyes for the first time that night.    
  
He drew in his breath, slowly, and pulled his knees up to his chest. “I don’t talk about my mother.”  
  
G.B. went still at that. He would not admit to being curious about Marshall Lee’s mother. That was beneath him. And surely it was just another of Marshall Lee’s overdramatizations.  
  
But. What if it wasn’t?  
  
Marshall Lee nodded—not at G.B.’s reaction, but at the cadence of his own words, the way he nodded when muttering rhymes under his breath. (The way he was always writing songs—that was another thing Marshall Lee never talked about.) “I don’t talk about my mother. It’s not because I don’t love her. That’s—that’s the fucked up part. I know now that she treated me like shit and I’m a piece of fucked-up trash because of her, but I still love her. Jesus.” He pressed the heel of his hand to one of the dark circles under his eyes, as though to catch tears that hadn’t fallen yet.  
  
G.B.’s hand twitched. He wanted to counter Marshall Lee’s statement of his own worthlessness. Never mind fifteen minutes ago he had been thinking of ways to make Marshall Lee feel that way. It was all right when G.B. did it, because Marshall Lee brushed it off. To hear that Marshall Lee truly believed that about himself—  
  
G.B. swallowed and kept still, but he didn’t manage to keep his mouth shut. “Is… is this about your mother?”  
  
Marshall Lee shook his head right away. “No.” His voice was small. “That’s why I said I don’t know where to start. It’s not about her, but it has to be about her, because otherwise—otherwise you won’t understand Simone.”  
  
G.B.’s eyes narrowed slightly; he couldn’t help it. “Who is Simone?” He knew—well, he wanted to know—that Simone wasn’t Marshall Lee’s girlfriend. Marshall Lee did not do girlfriends or boyfriends or datefriends. He slept with people, and sometimes he lived with them, and sometimes they kicked him out and he fell asleep on top of G.B.’s roof when the sky was clear and they could see the stars forever.   
  
But he had said her name with such—reverence. Marshall Lee never talked about anyone like that.  
  
Marshall Lee opened his mouth and closed it again. G.B. wanted to snap, but he stayed quiet. Marshall Lee was right, after all—G.B. was seeing the same Marshall Lee who looked at him with clear dark eyes that night in the pool, the same Marshall Lee who told G.B. he would try to be better.  
  
Marshall Lee was being better, so G.B. just had to bury his nasty feelings and let him do it.  
  
Finally, Marshall Lee said, “Simone is my mom.”  
  
G.B. felt relief and confusion at once. He ignored the relief because it did not belong and said, “So you had two moms?”  
  
“Not in a lesbian way.” Marshall Lee paused, made a face, and shook his head. “Not like that. They’ve met a couple of times, but my mother hates Simone. Because she—she took me away.”  
  
Marshall Lee dropped his eyes. G.B. was not sure why, but he didn’t want to keep quiet, in case Marshall Lee folded in on himself and stopped talking altogether. That happened sometimes when Marshall Lee was very upset.   
  
G.B. wished he had sweet words to take away some of the pain in Marshall Lee’s eyes. But all he had were facts, because facts were safe. “So she is your adoptive parent?”  
  
Marshall Lee nodded in a jerky motion. “But she’s. Um. She’s sick. She. She wrote me a letter today to tell me. And I—I’m such a piece of  _shit_ —” He covered his face, suddenly; his words broke off into sobs.  
  
G.B. did not know what to do with this outburst. His first instinct was to look away and to pretend that it wasn’t happening, because that’s what G.B. wanted other people to do on the occasions that his emotions got away from him.   
  
But Marshall Lee was not G.B.  
  
And—G.B. wanted—  
  
He leaned forward and put his hands on Marshall Lee’s knees. He could not make himself take Marshall Lee’s hands away from his face, nor could he come up with anything to say that wasn’t clinical and cold. But he squeezed Marshall Lee’s knees, just to remind Marshall Lee he was there.  
  
Marshall Lee took in a few shuddering breaths, wiping his tears away as abruptly as they had come. He swallowed. “I didn’t—shit, I didn’t want to cry—”  
  
G.B. wondered if he should return to his former position. He didn’t want to, so he stayed where he was, running his thumb over and over the bit of skin exposed by the rip in Marshall Lee’s jeans. “It’s better for you that way. That’s what everybody tells me.”  
  
Marshall Lee snorted. “I bet you never cry,” he muttered. G.B. wondered if he knew how true that was. Marshall Lee swallowed again, his voice evening out. “I just—I suck so much. I left her, just like I left everybody else ‘cause I wanted to go off and do my own thing, and she never said anything. When I come home, she just acts like I went to the store or something. Never yells at me for leaving. She’s just happy that I’m back. And now—” But he broke off, as though vocalizing what might happen next was too terrible to consider.  
  
G.B. bit his lip. “What’s the matter with her?” He felt helpless.   
  
“She said—she said they think she has Alzheimer’s.” Marshall Lee’s eyes flicked up to G.B.’s. face. His breathing was uneven. He bit his lip, but the words burst from him anyway. “She doesn’t have anybody else, just me, and I’m just a fucking piece of shit who wasn’t even around to know she was fucking getting sick—”  
  
G.B.’s hands tightened on Marshall Lee’s knees. “Well, it’s obvious what you need to do,” he said softly, looking away from Marshall Lee’s eyes.  
  
It came out colder than he meant; Marshall Lee scowled and pushed his hands away. “Yeah, because you’re the fucking genius and I’m just some dumbass who doesn’t know shit. I know that already.”  
  
“Marshall Lee—” G.B.’s voice came out in the tones he would use for a lecture. He stopped himself, forcibly, and moved back to the other end of the bed. Marshall Lee was still glaring at G.B.’s wall, so he did not see the way G.B. worked to master himself. That was good. It was embarrassing to lose control of himself.   
  
When G.B. was completely sure he would not sound the same way, he said, “You should come here.”  
  
Marshall Lee’s eyes snapped to his. His mouth was already open for a cold retort, but something in G.B.’s face stopped him. He frowned, like he was looking for the trap. G.B. hated himself for making Marshall Lee act that way, even though he knew it wasn’t entirely his fault. Marshall Lee didn’t trust anyone. “Why?”  
  
“Because—” That was too strident again. G.B. cleared his throat and continued when he was absolutely certain his tone of voice was under control. “Because I keep doing this wrong.” Marshall Lee’s brows drew together. G.B. continued anyway, because he was relatively certain he could trust himself to keep behaving correctly now. “I was—upset with you, and I’m still upset with you, and I can’t get that out of my head right now, even though I know I should be able to. Your feelings are more important than mine right now.”  
  
Marshall Lee stared at him for a moment. Then, to G.B.’s surprise, Marshall Lee swiped a hand across his face and laughed. “Sometimes I can’t believe you’re even real. That was like the weirdest way to offer anybody a hug I’ve ever heard.”  
  
G.B. pursed his lips—not because he was really irritated, but because that was what Marshall Lee expected him to do, and it would keep him from asking any serious questions. “I never claimed to be good at this. In fact, you have countless pieces of evidence to prove that I am not. I know that because you trot them out at every opportunity.”  
  
“Jesus Christ,” Marshall Lee muttered. Then he shook his head and crawled across the bed.  
  
G.B. had expected Marshall Lee to be weird about it, but Marshall Lee settled in against his side like he had always been there. G.B. put an arm around Marshall Lee’s shoulders because the headboard was too high to act as an armrest. The gesture seemed to remind Marshall Lee what they had been talking about, or, at least, he hid his face in his hands again, digging his nails into his scalp.   
  
G.B. looked away. Carefully, so carefully, he said, “I didn’t mean to say it like that. I meant—” He took in a breath, surprised at the sudden catch in his chest. He wished that it was asthma and knew it was not.  
  
Marshall Lee was being honest. The least G.B. could do was return the favor. Marshall Lee already knew what had happened to his parents, after all. “…If I was given any chance to be with my parents before—what happened, I would do it. Even if it meant I went with them. I. I would do it. So you—you need to go and be with her.”  
  
Marshall Lee was staring at him through parted fingers; G.B. was very aware of this, but he did his best to ignore it, because he could not ignore that this was the first time he had told anyone that.   
  
“Oh,” said Marshall Lee at last. “Yeah. You’re right.”   
  
G.B. realized he was rubbing Marshall Lee’s shoulder and made himself stop because he didn’t like doing things without thinking.   
  
“I guess I was going to do that.” Marshall Lee’s voice was very soft. “But I wanted you to know first. I wanted—I wanted to tell you, so you wouldn’t freak out.”  
  
G.B. looked back at Marshall Lee; he couldn’t help it. “You did?” His voice was—soft. He didn’t care for it, but he couldn’t help that, either.  
  
“Yeah.” Marshall Lee swallowed. “Can I—can I stay here tonight? I’ve got bus tickets for tomorrow, but—”  
  
“My bed’s big enough.” G.B. could feel Marshall Lee looking at him; G.B. did not look back.  
  
After a moment, Marshall Lee slid out of G.B.’s hold and settled on the far side of the bed, facing the wall. He didn’t claim a pillow or a blanket, so G.B. shoved one of each at him, telling himself that he did not care that Marshall Lee was thin and small and tired-looking. He resisted the urge to tuck the blanket in tighter around Marshall Lee’s shoulders, instead lying down so he faced away from Marshall Lee.  
  
He thought that was the end of it, and he was starting to fall asleep when Marshall Lee said, softly, “You’re wearing the shirt I gave you.”  
  
G.B.’s eyes snapped open; his hand tightened on the sheet. “…I don’t have anything else to wear to bed. Anyway, it’s comfortable.”  
  
Fingers brushed his side; G.B. remained perfectly still. He was afraid, and he didn’t want anything to give that away.   
  
After a moment, a warm back settled against his.  
  
***  
  
Marshall Lee woke him up to say goodbye, which was more than G.B. had thought to expect. He stared up at Marshall Lee’s face blearily; it was still very early, and he still had not gotten much sleep.   
  
“Uh,” said Marshall Lee, brushing one hand over the sheet. “I, uh—”  
  
“If you have to go, just go,” G.B. mumbled, rubbing his eyes. “It’s not like you haven’t done it before.”  
  
“Yeah, but—” Marshall Lee made an irritated noise. He shoved a crumpled piece of paper at G.B. It was one of G.B.’s own pieces of stationary, though G.B. knew better than to comment on that. “That’s Simone’s address and her phone number. Y’know. If—if you want it.”  
  
G.B. looked at the paper, coming more awake slowly. His mouth was dry. He wet his lips. “That’s. That’s good, Marshall Lee. Thank you.”  
  
The slightest of smiles touched Marshall Lee’s lips; his hand drifted from the sheet up to G.B.’s hair, and he brushed his fingers through it, just lightly. Then he pulled back and started to climb out the window.  
  
G.B. sat up, quickly. “Marshall Lee?”  
  
Marshall Lee looked back at him, eyebrows raised. “Yeah?”  
  
“You know my number. You should—call it.”  
  
Marshall Lee smiled again at that. The morning sun behind him made him look like a figure in a dream. “I’ll try, G.B.”  
  
Then he was gone.


End file.
